So this guy was CIA director under Nixon
Richard Helms…helm of a ship,steers the ship🤨 anyway
Oh boy this guy had his grubbies into everything👀
In 1953 Dulles became the fifth DCI under President Eisenhower.
John Foster Dulles, Dulles' brother, was Eisenhower's
Secretary of State. Under the DDP Helms was specifically tasked in the defense of the agency against the threatened attack by Senator
Joseph McCarthy, and also in the development of "truth serum" and other "mind control" drugs per the CIA's controversial
Project MKUltra. From Washington, Helms oversaw the
Berlin Tunnel, the 1953–1954 espionage operation which later made newspaper headlines. Regarding CIA activity, Helms considered information obtained by espionage to be more beneficial in the long run than the more strategically risky work involved in covert operations, which could backfire politically. Under his superior and mentor, the DDP Wisner, the CIA marshaled such covert operations, which resulted in regime change in
Iran in 1953 and
Guatemala in 1954 and interference in the
Congo in 1960. During the crises in
Suez and
Hungary in 1956 the DDP Wisner became distraught by the disloyalty of allies and the loss of a precious cold-war opportunity. Wisner left in 1958. Passing over Helms, DCI Dulles appointed
Richard Bissell, who had managed the
U-2 spy plane, as the new DDP.
During the Kennedy presidency, Dulles selected Helms to testify before Congress on Soviet-made forgeries. Following the
1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco, President Kennedy appointed
John McCone as the new DCI, and Helms then became the DDP. Helms was assigned to manage the CIA's role in Kennedy's
multi-agency effort to dislodge
Castro. This effort produced the Miami
JMWAVE operation led by CIA agent
George Joannides.[4]. During the
Cuban Missile Crisis, while McCone sat with the president and his cabinet at the White House, Helms in the background supported McCone's significant contributions to the strategic discussions. After the 1963 coup in South Vietnam, Helms was privy to Kennedy's anguish over the killing of
President Diem. Three weeks later Kennedy was himself assassinated. Helms eventually worked to manage the CIA's complicated response during its subsequent investigation by the
Warren Commission.[5]
